Swine flu cases jump to 30 in India (Third Lead)

New Delhi, June 15 (IANS) Swine flu cases in India jumped to 30 Monday after seven students from Punjab who arrived from the US tested positive for the disease, health officials said here. As most of the swine flu cases are of those who had arrived from the US, the union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad urged people to “suspend” their travels for the time being.

According to health officials here, seven of a group of 31 teenagers from the Guru Amar Das Public school in Jalandhar who had gone to New York and Florida on an educational trip to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), tested positive for swine flu.

Of the children, 10 had developed symptoms of mild influenza like illness and were isolated at the Civil Hospital in Jalandhar.

“Seven of them have tested positive for the novel influenza H1N1 virus. All these children are stable and responding to treatment,” said a statement issued here.